


Revolving Doors

by livelovehump



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livelovehump/pseuds/livelovehump
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times crew members of the Enterprise wanted a manual door to slam, and the one time one did and no one wanted it to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revolving Doors

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the brilliantly wonderful [Hellokatzchen @ LJ](hellokatzchen.livejournal.com), who held my hand and told me I was awesome when I thought I was on the insecure failboat.

1.

Five more minutes and Christine Chapel was _praying_ that Leonard McCoy stayed in his office. She wasn’t sure what it was today because normally she was perfectly able to handle her CMO. She knew when to push and raise her voice at him, and she knew when to let things go. Sure this occasionally led to a rather tense sickbay, but at least it was one that ran smoothly.

Maybe it was boredom-- after all, they’d been patient less for two days-- or something else but his mood was abnormally foul and unpleasant. She just knew that _something_ had crawled up Leonard McCoy’s ass, and then it had _died_ there.

It was alright, though-- everything would be alright. Five minutes and she would be off shift. Five minutes and she could relax with a novel on her PADD, return the messages from her family, or maybe see if Uhura was off shift, too, and if she wanted to share a drink. Because Christine had an urge to drink heavily from the contraband bourbon in her quarters. It had been made worse two hours ago by a yelling match over _inventory forms_ of all stupid things and McCoy’s apparent inability to fill the damned things out correctly.

Of course, _that_ was when the door whooshed open to reveal two security officers dragging in the captain. “Get McCoy,” she snapped irritably at a nearby nurse. (Because even if he did nothing except complain, heaven forbid, anyone else treat Jim Kirk in this sickbay. No, she‘d _never_ hear the end of it if she didn‘t inform him, and that‘d be infinitely worse than any momentary respite she got from not telling him.)

She used the same tone with the security detail: “Get him on the bed,” as she rushed over tricorder in hand. (With Kirk one never knew if it was a serious problem or a case of Andorian crotch rot.) This time it seemed to be something of the latter.

While the captain looked bloodied and bruised, he was smiling and laughing around a slightly puffy cheek and split lip. He really didn’t seem too much worse for the wear. “You know, I’ve never heard that command delivered that sternly from a beautiful woman before, but I’m _definitely_ willing to give it a try.”

Christine bristled and stopped scanning briefly to give him a pointed look. If he noticed, he showed no sign-- until he winced. (And that wasn’t for her.) “Here he comes. ‘Damnit, Jim, what the hell have you gotten yourself into now?’” His imitation was pitch perfect and, on any other day, it might have made Christine laugh-- assuming it was one where she wasn’t annoyed with them both.

“Damnit, Jim, what the hell have you gotten yourself into now?” McCoy barked as he stalked over.

Christine rolled her eyes.

“Can’t I just have her?” Jim asked motioning with his head in Christine’s direction as McCoy irritably flipped on sensors and lights on the bed.

“No, my nurses aren’t frat boy babysitters,” he replied quickly. “Though Lieutenant Chapel should have finished that scan already.”

“Well, here, by all means Doctor,” she snapped in return, shoving the tricorder in his hands. “Feel free to do it yourself. There’s nothing seriously wrong. I’m not so incompetent at my job that I’d let a critical patient go one second without proper treatment.” She was standing close, eying him dangerously.

He actually looked a tad bit taken aback at that. “I never said you were incompetent.” His tone made it obvious that he didn’t appreciate words being put in his mouth.

“Oh, so it’s one of _those_ days,” a cheerful voice chirped.

He was met with a, “Shhhh,” from Christine and a simultaneous, “Shut up,” from McCoy.

Then again when did the captain ever actually listen? “You two ever think of a more enjoyable way you two could do to relieve all the tension?”

Christine snapped. She grabbed a hypospray filled with a painkiller medicine (because she knew the Captain did have a couple fractured ribs from the aborted scan) and jabbed his neck with it in a very McCoy-like manner. She grabbed the nearest nurse. “Assist Doctor McCoy,” she instructed. “I’m off duty, _doctor_.“ With that, she stalked off.

Behind her, the captain spoke again: “Was it something I said? Ow, Bones, stop it!” Christine might have smiled at that, except she was too busy wishing for a more dramatic exit-- like a door slam or something.

2.

Keenser had been stuck in the middle of nowhere on an ice planet with a mad Scotsman for far too long. He was almost positive that if there were just a few more officers around that the quirks and crazy that was Montgomery Scott wouldn’t be nearly so annoying. But he doubted that any amount of company would keep the man from complaining. For someone so obviously brilliant, Montgomery Scott was dense.

“Get off that!” he’d shout.

But Keenser couldn’t help it! His people on Kzqzzzj were _tree people_. He was uncomfortable on the ground for long periods of time-- especially the cold ground of Delta Vega. (He’d stopped trying to explain that after a month.)

“Food. I need real food, or else I’m building meself a bloody hibernation chamber,” he’d say tossing a tiny pack of foodstuffs in Keenser’s direction.

As if Keenser didn’t _also_ want real food. He didn’t know what these sandwiches were, but he craved his food, too. What he wouldn’t give for the meat of the aiueieoy fish, pvtzzp salad, and lkqgxt, the deep purple forest ale of his home! (This was also something he stopped trying to explain after a few weeks time.)

So maybe once in a while before sleep he’d hit the button to get into his quarters far harder than was needed-- it wasn‘t _his_ fault there weren‘t any doors to slam. And then he’d sigh and wonder if all humans were half manic crazy people.

3.

Leonard McCoy was going to die.

He was going to die, and his idiot kid of a captain wasn’t there to go down with him. There simply wasn’t a damned bit of justice in the world.

As far as away team missions went, it was hardly the worst. It was a purely altruistic sort of thing, delivering and administering vaccinations (along with various other health services) to a region of Hekaras II that had suffered from several consecutive natural disasters. The first science and medical team had left a couple of days ago; McCoy would‘ve been with them, but M’benga had been itching for more experience off-ship.

The other doctor had said the planet was beautiful with picture perfect weather-- something McCoy was actually looking forward to. Because a few days on a nice planet just doing run of the mill doctoring? He reckoned that was about as close to a vacation (and to home) he was going to get while on duty.

So McCoy had actually gotten his hopes up, and he started cursing his momentary optimism when he saw the shuttle.

“There’s currently an electromagnetic storm in the upper atmosphere.” Jim had explained it as if that made it alright. “Makes the transporter iffy. Besides,” he’d continued with that trademark Jim Kirk smirk, clapping him on the shoulder, “you said you were getting better, Bones.”

Not really.

Maybe just a teeny bit, baby steps and all that. Hell, he was living on a bucket of bolts, wasn’t he? But that didn’t mean he _wanted_ to get on the damned thing, much less be a passenger through a goddamn magnetic storm. How the hell was that even possible to fly through, anyway?

But somehow Jim had gotten him to agree-- like he _always_ did. (This time it was with words about the poor Hekarans who _needed_ him and more vaccines; he even tossed in the Hippocratic Oath for good measure.) So now McCoy was stuck enduring what could only be described as the most turbulent shuttle ride that anyone had ever experienced.

And he _was_ going to die, he knew he was.

Eyes clamped shut, he gripped the arm rests for dear life (as if they were the thing tin can of death that could/would save him). Thankfully, it was a relatively short ride to the surface-- even if it _felt_ like hours. Still, he cursed everything from Jim Kirk to his inability to tell the captain to fuck off (and actually mean it) to incompetent pilots to natural disasters every time the shuttle lurched.

He could feel his breath quickening and knew he was on the edge of a full blown panic attack when they finally landed.

“Doctor McCoy we’re here.”

He didn’t even hear it. “Get me the hell off of this thing,“ he growled out the moment he knew they were on solid ground. He bowled over the rest of the team as he threw himself out of the opening shuttle door.

Taking a deep calming breath, he kicked the side of the shuttle as hard as he could. Fuck, that had _hurt_. And nowhere as satisfying as slamming the door shut behind him would’ve been.

4.

The Captain of this ship was a _child_. Three weeks as his yeoman and that was really the only solid idea Janice Rand had of him.

Sure, people were talking about him like he was already a legend and, granted, he was the ultimate of the big damn heroes at the moment. But Janice had become convinced people thought that only because they were not tasked with trying to get him to do his paperwork in a timely manner. If they were in her shoes, they would have come to the same conclusion she had.

The problem was that Jim Kirk had been made captain of a ship in need of extensive repairs. And that made him a captain with a lot of free time on his hands. She found herself wondering if all captains became so infantile in the same situation.

Okay, at first Kirk had been excited because the vast majority of his paperwork dealt with picking his crew-- or at least the department heads. It should have taken him days-- he had the pick of the litter-- but instead he was done in record time.

Apparently going through a disaster like the _Narada_ incident made for strong crew ties and loyalty (which was actually a admirable trait, she thought), so they were who he wanted.

He’d even sat with Janice as she put in the requests. Which was unnecessary, but sweet-- even when he interrupted her. “Why’s Scotty’s request file so much larger than the others, Janice?” (Kirk was not used to the degree of professionalism that she had come to expect from a captain.)

“Yeoman or Yeoman Rand,” she corrected gently not looking up from her task. “I put copies of a number of debriefings cataloguing how his quick thinking saved the _Enterprise_ from a black hole-- in case Admiral Archer is reluctant to permanently reassign him.”

“You think of everything, don’t you, Yeoman Rand?” he’d asked smile on his face.

She glanced up at him then and did have to admit it he wore it well. “It’s my job, sir.” It was then that she’d foolishly assumed they’d found common ground.

That was then. Now-- now, she was _tired_.

And they were behind on administrative tasks! She was _never_ behind on _anything_. If they were in space on red alert she would understand it, but he was just procrastinating here, living it up before going on his five year mission.

Today she’d reached her limit. When he’d shown up late, she directed him through the day’s tasks with a shrewd, cold professionalism that would make an Inuit shiver and wish for a blanket. And even the charismatic James T. Kirk knew not to argue with her.

They did it all: engineering requisition forms, signing off on a gaggle of new medical personnel from McCoy (that she had him check over twice), checking inventory, reviewing repair records, approving or dismissing potential training programs, and everything in every bit of the ship from the science departments to laundry and janitorial. She sat with him, only allowing one break for lunch.

She sort of liked the surreptitious looks Kirk shot her throughout the day, though. Like she was the meanest person on the planet and that he’d stuff a PADD down his own throat if he thought it might end the torture.

She took pity on him when she thought they were close enough to caught up. “That’s all for today, sir,” she said scooping up the remaining PADDs.

“Dismissed, Yeoman,” he said sounding extremely irritable and happy the day was over-- if it was possible to be both at once.

Janice exited the office and door whooshed closed behind her. She couldn’t help but wish she could close the door just a _bit_ more firmly than necessary when the feeling was mutual. That would hardly be professional, though.

Still, she did smile to herself. Maybe now James Kirk would stop procrastinating. (Hey, a yeoman could dream, couldn’t she?)

5.

Nyota Uhura was gripping the control panel in front of her hard when she heard Mr. Scott over the comms speaking quickly on how they _might_ get out of this. She held on tight and just _knew_ that she was about to fall into the darkness of a black hole.

They didn’t though. The idiot farm boy she’d met in an Iowa bar actually miraculously pulled them through this. She heard the entire bridge let out a collective sigh of relief, and while she’d joined them in doing so, she still felt wrong-- like they weren’t through the nightmare quite yet-- like she still couldn’t breathe.

Regardless, she jumped into action though. Uhura had a job to do; she didn’t join Starfleet to waffle during or after a crisis. And, while the threat had been downgraded, there looked to be a crack in the hull of the ship and the warp engines were shot to hell and Uhura still very much counted that a crisis. So she kept communications between various departments running smoothly as they reported their current status to the bridge and the bridge gave orders. It took a few hours but things got to an almost calm state.

“Doctor M’Benga is reporting that Doctor McCoy says Captain Pike will be fine-- if you stop trying to interrupt him for a report on him,” she said after the fourth time he’d asked her to get in contact with Sickbay. (That was, of course, the polite version of what she’d heard the acting CMO yelling in the background. Most of what had been said was language she wasn’t entirely comfortable using on the bridge of the Starfleet flagship.)

With that Kirk-- no, _the captain_ \-- gave the order for the crew to begin rest rotations and that the current bridge crew was dismissed to take part in the first rotation.

She really wished he hadn’t. Without anything to do, she was going to start thinking. She was going to think about the countless cadets and Starfleet officers that had been killed. She was going to think about Vulcan and-- Spock.

Halfway down a hallway leading from the bridge she swallowed and quickly ducked into a bathroom. She refused to break down like an idiot where just _anyone_ could see.

Gripping the sides of the sink much like she had the control panel, she studied herself in the mirror. Suddenly she let out a low yell of frustration and hit the wall beside her with the heel of her hand. Then she sniffed and felt some tears escape her eyes, wishing desperately for something to throw or slam or hit. (Where the hell was a manual door when you needed one?) Anything to get the feelings out-- distract her from all the senseless death again.

She gave herself five minutes. After she wiped her face and straightened her uniform. She might be off duty, but she was sure she could still find something important to do. Something to distract her, even for a little while.

+1

For once an away mission was going well. The planet Dadihlapibamapei and its natives were atypical for a first contact mission but everyone had been following the agreed upon protocols. The Dadihlapibamapeians were an extremely closed community, which made this planetside meeting with the elders a success in and of itself. (Although the elders did seem a bit skittish throughout the meeting.)

Captain James T. Kirk sat back as the harried, nervous-looking rookie diplomat they were stuck with by Starfleet tried to sell the Dadihlapibamapeians on some Federation business. Admittedly, _that_ could be going better. There seemed to be a natural dislike and distrust of outsiders.

The impatient part of Jim thought it would’ve behooved them to think about that before developing their own warp capabilities as it meant sending their civilization into space and the unknown. But whatever.

Even if they weren’t receptive to the Federation‘s overtures, everyone agreed that a good ground work had been laid out for any potential future dealings. And these seemed to be actually decent folks-- something that was not nearly as common as Starfleet led its cadets to believe.

The rules were simple: no sudden movements, don’t touch anything, and dear Lord, no loud noises. The natives naturally sensitive ears meant that all business had to be conducted in whispers and even a soft voice by human/Terran standards translated to raised tones by them. And, while that was hardly noteworthy in most cultures, here it could be considered extremely rude or even a brutal attack on their auditory senses.

As such, Uhura was spending a lot of time reminding Kirk of this under her breath. Apparently she trusted the rest of the away team with her two pre-mission warnings. She claimed it was because his away missions _always_ went badly.

They wrapped for the day and Kirk was preparing to call the _Enterprise_ for beam out (after giving Uhura a requisite, “I told you so,” look) when the diplomat dropped his PADD. It seemed to happen in slow motion as one of the security officers attempted to catch it before it the floor with a resounding thunk.

Startled, the elders jumped a mile. Half of the Dadihlapibamapeian council let out anguished cries of pain and one of them-- Siralos? Sireen? Jim couldn’t remember; the introductions had happened in whispers and all their names sounded _similar_ \-- had even fallen to his knees, clutching his ears.

The Federation diplomat, instead of apologizing profusely and kissing ass like he was _supposed_ to (it was his _job_ , after all), rabbited. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t accidentally _slammed_ the door behind him on his way out.

“Why are you attacking us? Repeatedly!“ the youngest of the elders ’cried’ in a moderate volume, making himself wince. That was the first sign shit was about to hit the fan. The second being the Dadihlapibamapeian security’s knee-jerk reaction of pulling their phasers out. Naturally the _Enterprise_ security did the same thing, as per protocol.

 _Awesome._ It was a Klingon standoff.

Kirk heard the chirp of a communicator. “Tell them to beam us out. _Now._ “ He said watching the drawn phasers carefully, knowing Uhura would give the order.

He supposed he could try to salvage this meeting but they were down one diplomat, and he’d just as soon let them deal with it themselves. Besides it wasn’t like there were damsels in distress who needed saving or some serious injustice that needed righting.

Jim heard Scotty’s affirmation about beam up over the sounds of the quiet quarrels of the Dadihlapibamapeians before everything seemed to dissolve around him.

Once they were safe on the _Enterprise_ transporter pad, he couldn’t help smiling at his team. “See? It’s never my fault when these things go to hell!” he said happily. (Well, maybe not _never_ but still. Not his fault.)


End file.
